Analyze The Effects Of The Great Depression

The Great Depression affected all kinds of people the young and the old; the rich and the poor. Americans weary from years of economic suffering and were willing to trust President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He offered them hope, which was all that many people had left. The economic hardships from the Great Depression had reached a highpoint by 1933. On March 4th 1933 every bank temporarily had its doors closed, but for a large number the economic crisis was a permanent reality. The banking system was near collapse, a quarter of the labor force was unemployed, and prices and production were down by a third from their 1929 levels.

The effects of the Great Depression on the American people were brutal and the many people that lived through it had many stories

Ed Trinne tells us that he and his family ran a country grocery store, a grits mill, and a cotton gin. He says that in the South cotton was the king and it was hard to get anything for the cotton. The government had soon came along and had them cut out cotton production. Jack Gray tells us that back in the Depression, he saw a lot of people come form southeast Kentucky and eastern Tennessee because they wanted to get better jobs. There was nothing going in the coalmines, and so he had a lot of people come in that were in bad shape. Fred Munguia tells us that During the Depression, many people from Oklahoma and other states affected by the Dust Bowl moved to San Joaquin Valley looking for work. Some families were lucky and were able to get jobs in Tehachapi, working in the cement plants and the women’s state prison. His parents bought a house on the edge of town, and they had no gas or sewer line. He says he can still remember when the gas line was laid through the alley and the workers wrapping a material that